England hungry for more

11 October 2007

Kevin Pietersen and Ravi Bopara celebrate England's momentous win in Colombo

Paul Collingwood hailed England’s historic one-day series win in Sri Lanka and revealed how his young squad have the appetite to build on their success.

The all-rounder marked a remarkable start to his reign as England’s one-day captain by following up a fine home series triumph over India with a stunning victory in Sri Lanka, their first major one-day series win on the sub-continent for 20 years.

They achieved their historic success by cruising to a five-wicket triumph after restricting Sri Lanka to 211 for nine.

Man of the match Alastair Cook hit a patient 80 and Kevin Pietersen guided England home with an unbeaten 63 as England eased home with 19 balls to spare.

Their triumph was all the more significant because it was achieved without key all-rounder Andrew Flintoff, who is sidelined with his latest ankle problem.

“Freddie is a massive part of English cricket and he will be again in the future, but these lads are very young and they’re still learning,” enthused Collingwood.

“That’s one of the exciting things about this. A lot of good and experienced teams have come here and gone away with nothing, but this lot are a young bunch of lads who have the energy and the belief but they’ve also shown they’ve got the skills as well.

“If we’d have lost the last two games it would have been devastating and I’m sure it would have hit the guys pretty hard, but we can go away with a smile on our faces now.”

Alastiar Cook's progress has delighted Paul Collingwood

Collingwood admitted Cook and Ravi Bopara, both 22, and 21-year-old seamer Stuart Broad have surprised him with their development over the last two months.

But he stressed their desire to improve both individually and as a team, which was highlighted by the bowlers learning quickly to bowl slower balls after their opening defeat, may make the difference in the future.

He said: “What we’ve got now is a really good structure and I have to give a lot of credit to the management and the environment they have created when new guys come into the party.

“We’re also working on our games as much as I’ve ever known and that’s a really crucial thing.

“Everybody wants to become better and better and when you’ve got all 15 members of your squad wanting to become better in between games that’s a dream come true from a captain’s point of view.

Collingwood added: “I am very, very proud and it was a very proud moment when we knocked those runs off tonight.

“I’m proud of all the players that have been involved and the management have been fantastic. We’ve been right up against it and it’s been a massive challenge.

Mahela Jayawardene admitted Sri Lanka's batting cost them

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“We lost that first game and the way the lads have bounced back has been unbelievable.

“There is a lot of true belief in the dressing room. We talked about it before the start of the series and I have to admit that the first game didn’t hit us as hard as I thought it might.

“We analysed it well and were very honest with ourselves because when you get beaten you have to be very honest with each other - and we were.

“We knew the areas we needed to improve and the key has been the belief we have built up over the last few weeks, especially the India series which was a big thing for us - that belief was not going to go after one game.”

Disappointed Sri Lanka skipper Mahela Jayawardene admitted his side’s failure to post competitive totals had been the key difference between the teams during the series.

“I don’t think we’ve batted well for the last three games and we have to take responsibility for that,” he conceded.

“On the sub-continent you need to bat really well to win one-day games which we didn’t do.”